Aljaž Lavrič

Through photographs, the artist explores Brussels as a transient and impermanent city. Many arrive for work, study, or family, yet most leave disillusioned. A pervasive myth suggests that life improves the further north one goes—higher wages, better education, an idyllic existence. Yet every place reveals its flaws. Despite initial disappointment, affection for the city emerges, nurtured by the people met along the way. This duality—a tension between frustration and attachment—permeates the images, where ambivalence, capturing the city’s complicated reality.

Parallel to this narrative, the project interrogates the words "writing" and "home," stitching them into the series as visual motifs: postcards, stamps, mailboxes, doorbells, but also homeless shelters, demolished houses, and foreclosure signs.

A chance encounter with Maximilian Smith Jones, a student of social sciences, deepened the artist’s engagement. Their conversations—about Brussels’ fractured identity, the city’s relationship to its inhabitants, and the fragile bonds between strangers—inspired the integration of Maximilian’s texts into the work. These fragments—anecdotes, fleeting observations, poems—avoid a linear story, instead mirroring the dissonance of urban life. The result is a meditation on place, belonging, and the stubborn gap between expectation and reality.